The Magic Branch
by LuciusBelyakov
Summary: A sad Lily Evans receives an unusual and magical visitor one morning. I can't summarize much more without giving things away, but its not what you might expect...  Caution: angst, but there's so much more to the story than that why its not in that genre.


I am this close to deleting this... poof, gone. I feel like I just can't get the flow of this one. I'd appreciate your thoughts or suggestions, otherwise its going to be euthanized. So if you're a fan of it or not at all... but still want to help, the story would really appreciate not being killed by me I think. As a wise friend of mine once reminded me, "If books and walls could talk, I think they'd have quite the story to tell."

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><p><strong>The Deer and the Willow<strong>

The morning sun shook its rays on the castle side, filling the campus with light as yellow as a locks of someone's hair. The fire from the sun woke up a girl from the Lion's Den. The Den was Gryffindor house's nickname back in the day, the morning of 1975, just before summer break. The girl's dormitories were called the Pride.

One lioness' eyes opened, a lion named Lily! Though she was named after something white she was a dramatically-colored girl, the eyes that slowly opened were green, and not as pale as her name might have been. Her hair was a little closer to the flower though, not an Easter lily, but a tiger lily, her hair was orange! The banged-haired young woman had ropes of tress quite out of control, some of it stood on top of her head, and she'd made braids and tendrils all about it, and every bit of her hair glittered, it shone with the same fire that flashed from her eyes, however green they were there were bits of red there.

Her eyes still itched from last night's tears. She ran out teardrops over the night. Lately when you looked at her she just stared, nothing came out of her eyes, they couldn't wink or shy away, or flicker with the light of a smile or cry, at least not today. When she was crying last night she screamed her last tear into a sheet so that there would be no sound, no evidence for anyone to overhear and come over and comfort or ask her a question. It was something she had to work out for herself. She yelled to herself and into her bed until she couldn't anymore, till the water was stuck and couldn't come out, all boxed in, in a green jail.

She thought she'd found the end to everything last night, and the crybaby that she was had died, the one deep inside of her whose sister would burn her enchanted school books alive in front of her, and part of her arm next with the same lighter. The screams always came from the pages, (who were not given a merciful death,) trying to escape their fate. But Lily never screamed, never breathed a word about it. Why would she? A witch was supposed to be tortured and burnt. She never made a sound to anyone about it, not even her pet cat, she was silent. She wasn't ratting on Petunia.

She hid each teardrop from everyone now the way she used to hide each act of magic, walking back from a playground in Cokeworth; she tried so hard to tuck it in, to let not a street light catch fire, or bubbles churn themselves out of a stranger's cup. She always walked the route to school or to the mailbox as if there was a gun pointed at the back of her head. Petunia said her parents would sell her to a freak show in the circus if they only knew. Of course they would, but what she was more concerned with was once the freak show got tired of her, the next stops were even worse she heard, the rods scientist's would poke her with, and the knives of doctors.

She bawled up on the bed of her dorm, wishing she had a penseive to put her memories in, so she wouldn't have to keep em. Her twisting was interrupted by a bump, BUMP.

Did something fall in the room? She convinced herself that's what it was, a book off the table... or did it fall outside her door?

Were there unbottled fairies in the hall?

Was there a ghoul up under the bed, left there from poor cleaning? No... she knew that she was pretty neat and organized, 'hadn't leave big enough mess for ghouls to accumulate yet.

Strawberry head, or any other insult she had been knighted with, felt too dead at the moment to get up and assure herself and see. She would miss her classes, a first in four years, she would skip and sleep till 1:00 in the afternoon.

Her pink pillows were falling down, making squeaking sounds and hitting the floor like toys. The snores of roommates filled the air, meanwhile the sound came back, just underneath some sentences about boyfriends and exams the other girls talked of in their sleep.

The echo was not in the room with them… it must have been outside the door.

Just how many boys were trying to spy and get in this time? Running with cameras to catch any witch who might be changing their clothes, with their newly-bought wands from Olivander's set to stupefy.

If she heard them breaking things, or another little girl crying she swore to herself she'd drag her thick legs out of bed and send them howling, the guilty, the innocent. She didn't want to hear anymore pain, lost first-years sulking in the hall after being beaten by Filch, new kids she'd comforting for the last four years. Or screaming friends of hers cornered by boggarts that she'd jumped in front of and Riddikulus-ed back to the shadows. No more noise, no more yelping and bleeding imps in the hall, their wings pulled of their backs by brats, that she'd try to bewitch back to health or rush to Madam Pomfrey.

Perhaps she shouldn't have come to Hogwarts? At least there would be no more tears from her mother from her not being there. She wouldn't see her for months, except in dreams or visions, divination practice had made her all too good at that, now she saw nothing but crying and loneliness miles away.

If she went to battle with anyone outside her door then her weapon would not be a wand, what was even mightier was her shiny prefect's badge, it only took a flash to disable anyone in the school, even mean teachers thought twice about picking on a prefect, their word meant something more than any ordinary student. She gnashed her teeth into a smile, imagining running down the halls getting some of her own back. She almost smiled...

She knew it was coming and was going to savor this chance to blow off her steam... that sound came yet again, this was the third time. She held onto her nightstand, looking for that piece of metal, that red shield with letters, the one honor she had that no one had twisted into something wrong with her.

Soon as she could hold it up in victory, before she could march to the door and be like a muggle police officer she realized that the tap was in the room with her... and not to go outside, it had to come to her… here.

The tap was being made at her window, the one in the middle all covered with banners of the Great Godric Gryffindor, his hair on his shoulders, saffron for curls and his sword in his hand, a witch's hat titled over his eyebrow like a fedora.

The banner stood there, hiding whatever was making sounds on the other end. All she could see was that tapestry, and the outline of old lace curtains behind it, all lit with sun, hidden behind the tapestry. What was next… behind that? Was it an owl then making her daily run? His beak and feet knocking on the glass? Did he carry another autographed snitch from James, a love letter of misspelled words inside the ball? Too early for a progress report... maybe it was from Dad? He'd sometimes send a care package and a little candy? Was it a postcard from Petunia? Every once and again she would send her a word: _Sorry_

Petunia would write sentences with the word _love _in it sometimes, and _miss_ before the _you, _instead of _hate_. Or sometimes her schoolmates would write to her: Y_ou're a Mudblood, go cut your dirt veins. _The lines would be in a rainbow of finger paints that would stain the glass, with spells that could not be removed, (Hence the Headmaster having sending a banner for this room,) and there would be voodoo dolls waiting on the sill too, all crucified and slashed.

She knew better, what was probably on the other end… but she was going to know for sure, not know better. Know who hated her instead of think about who might.

She lifted the dream catcher and she lifted the curtains, and every other thing her roommates propped up there to hide the carnival of animals behind the glass outside.

Her cat's eyed opened wide and wider as she opened the window and saw…

_To be continued..._

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><p>Bear with me, I have the next part. I'm just editing this... what is behind the window will come!<p> 


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